her jewelry was of the american mode. it was un-american for women to wear precious stones. she would wear gold and silver and french paste and enamelware. so few of these headdresses have survived from this time because they are made out of silk and satin that tended to get worn out. we have a wonderful collection of headdresses. a turbine, which by the 1840's would have fallen out of fashion, but dolly madison was a regular visitor. we wonder if sarah polk did not adopt that style after mrs. madison. this is the inaugural fan. it was a gift from president- elect polk to his wife sarah. she carried it with her on the day of his inauguration. it is gilt paper with a bone style. it features the lithographic image of the signing of the

declaration of independence. the polks came into the white house a young, vibrant couple. the white house was split and that was why polk said he would run for only one term only. sarah polk used the white house to enhance her husband's political prestige. dining in the white house was a serious affair. twice a week, she would entertain 50-75 people. the china they used was beautiful. it is considered some of the most beautiful of the white house china. it features the presidential seal. the dinner set is white embossed with gold. you will often read that mrs. polk did not allow alcohol in

the white house. she stopped the serving of whisky punches at public levees, but wine was one of the largest bills. one of the more interesting objects in the collection speaks to sarah and her ability with music. we have music book that has hand written notations. when of the books inside was the song hail to the chief, she is credited starting to use as the official song of the president. >> eastern new york was considered the frontier at that time. >> at the time the home that belonged to millard and abigail fillmore. they met when they were both teachers. they both had this desire and love of reading.

abigail was brought up in a family that had many books. her father was a baptist preacher. he loved to read. she was surrounded by books her whole lifetime. when she moved into this house with millard, she continued that. they had their own personal library. she wanted to let young people learn extensively about the world as it was. this room we are in is the focus of the entire house. history is made right here. she independently employed herself as a teacher. she tutored young students in the evening in the course of history. this room would have been the living room. it also served as their kitchen. here in front of the fireplace, millard and abigail would spend hours in front of the fireplace and do their reading and writing. abigail cooked in this very

room. it was their kitchen. this is the bedroom. the original staircase has quite an angle to it. as a young wife and mother dressed in a long skirt and with a toddler on her hip, she ascended that ladder into the bedroom. within this room, we have been fillmore bed and dresser. she was a wonderful seamstress. we have a colorful quilt in a tomblin blot pattern. -- a tumbling block pattern. we can envision abigail having a very full life. we see her as a hospitable young woman, young wife, young mother, a teacher.

>> after leaving congress, franklin and jane pierce moved to concord, new hampshire to raise a family. >> franklin had just finished serving in congress. he served a full term in the senate. he resigned his seat about a year earlier than his term was up to move back to contour to be with jane and to raise their two children -- concord to be with jane and to raise their two children. this is the only home they ever owned. >> we are in the dining room. typically the family would have their main meal at noontime. jane pierce was a shy, reclusive person. she did not entertain a lot in her private home. >> this couch belonged to jane. this was one piece they took to

the white house. they had 8 rooms they had to furnished with their personal furniture. this was one of the pieces they took to the white house with them. this table was known as the white house table. they had to borrow some furniture to take to the white house with them. this was one piece that they borrowed from jane's sister mary. the also took the little writing desk and chair that belong to franklin pierce. this room would have been used as a guest room. this is a small bed. we think this belonged to benny pierce. this is a master bedroom. this is a rumor that franklin and jane would have used. this is the room where their second son, frankie, died of typhus when he was four years old.

this was a great blow to both jane and franklin. he was the apple of their eye. he was an interesting little character, according to their letters. they were devastated by his death. jane was in mourning quite a long time. >> a big house, especially with only one child, was too much for jane to take care of. she was not interested in housekeeping. when pierce went off to fight in the mexican war and they sold the house when he came back in 1848, and then they lived in a boarding house again in concord. they lived in a boarding situation for the rest of their lives. >> this is andover, massachusetts. mary was jane pierce's sister. they were very close friends throughout life. mary was there for jane in all of the important times in her life.

jane and franklin came to andover to visit the aiken family. they came there with her son benny to visit the cousin's. mary and john had cousins. the family stated 48 center street -- stated 48 central state. jane would stay with her sister mary at 48 central street. it is believed that administrative staff stated 47 central street just across the road from them. jane and franklin were staying in andover because there had been a death in the family. jane's uncle, amos lawrence, had died. they went to boston to attend that funeral. they return so they could get ready to move to the white

house. unfortunately, the train ride was devastating for the family. it was about a mile outside of the city and an axle broke on the train. as i understand it, benny was a child and was moving about. when the train rolled down, he was hit in the back of his head very severely. benny did not survive the crash. the services for benny took place at mary aiken's house. they want to bury benny, the jane did not attend. she was very grief stricken and could not make it to the final procession of the funeral. jane was very sick most of her life. she was referred to as tubercular and she probably died of a lung disease. she died in andover at 48 central street. >> raised by her uncle, james buchanan, harriet lane was hostess for many social activities, which prepared her for a future as a white house hostess.

james buchanan. in 1848, they moved here. this was the place she would call home until the age of 36 when they moved to baltimore. >> this is the place where harriet lane would have served tea to friends, write letters, spent time together. very much like we would use the family room today. here we have harriet lane's piano. it was a gift from her uncle. this was probably purchased sometime in the mid to late 1860's. we have her music book here. it is embossed with her name on the front. it contains a number of her favorite pieces, including italian classics.

we alsve songs. one of her uncle's favorite things to do was to sit here and listen to his niece playing religious hymns. he was a devout presbyterian. to listen to those hymns was something that brought a great amount of joy to him. harriet lane was very enthusiastic about all things european. when her uncle was elected as minister in the court of st. james, she was over the moon about the idea that she might get to accompany him. upon presentation to queen victoria,miss lane made a great impression and the queen was impressed with her. as a result, the two formed a great friendship that would continue throughout both of their lives. this bracelet is actually a gift that the queen gave harriet. it is a beautiful gold bracelet. it has her name, harriet lane, and the date of 1857 when she

received a gift. behind me, we have a lithograph of queen victoria and her husband, prince albert. this was a diplomatic gift presented to president james buchanan and harry lane during the time in the white house. they actually hung in the white house and then were brought back here to their home. kerry lane spent quite a bit of time traveling with her uncle james buchanan. they also entertained international visitors during their time in the white house. one of the most interesting groups they had visit them was the japanese delegation. the japanese delegation came to the white house in 1860 and came bearing all types of gifts. what can see here are some of the list of things they brought. paper fold and objects. oragami. this is a little dictionary in japanese. harriett and her friends found all of these things intriguing.

here we are in harriet's lane's bedroom. it is furnished in the same way it might have been furnished when she was living here. these are pieces she owned after her marriage. behind me, you will see her original wardrobe where she would have stored her beautiful gowns that she purchased from paris. she had a penchant for european fashions. most of her clothes were handmade for her in paris. her signature style of first lady differed radically from this dress. she would wear full gowns with many layers of ruffles. she was also known for her low neckline. that was something that was not quite in fashion in america yet. she brought it to the forefront of fashion and people started copying her.

some of her garments created a bit of a scandal because she was showing a great bit of skin. it caught on. women copied her hair, her jewelry, and her general fashion sense. over to the right, we have a small doll that is not a plaything. it is created to look just like her. it is wearing her signature style of gown. in front of me is a beautiful rose wood mahogany bed. she had it specially made to accommodate her uncle. he was a very tall man, so she wanted to make sure he was comfortable. this is something that she commission specifically with her beloved uncle in mind. we also have many pieces in the room that are american made and european made, reflecting her pride of country and her interest in european pieces. we have a small writing desk

that she would use to sit and write letters to friends. luckily, it is portable. she spent much of her time traveling to friends and family throughout the country. >> a very ambitious woman, mary todd lincoln saw great political potential in her husband, abraham lincoln. >> this is the home where mary helped build abraham lincoln's political career. she would invite friends and family over to talk politics, talk events of the day. his goals were enhanced whenhe met and married mary todd. she was ambitious. there was something about abraham lincoln. she said she was going to marry a man who would be president.

she saw the potential and encouraged it and helped develop it. lessons in etiquette in the dining room helped polish him up for washington society. the political parties they had when they invited a lot of important political people. the strawberry and cream parties. she wielded a lot of power. both over mr. lincoln and where he was going. this is the dining room. when they moved in it was an eating kitchen. that is not something that a polished, high society, upper- class person would do. mary had grown up with a formal dining room in kentucky and she felt she needed to have one here. she did not want her children growing up without the proper manners. in a lot of cases, mr. lincoln needed that polishing as well. all of her boys needed polishing

in manners. she created this dining room to have that formal space for she and her family and also when they had guests over. after he was elected president, there were four months between the election and the inauguration. there were a lot of visitors coming to springfield. one of them was william seward, who ended up being secretary of state. being an excellent hostess,she had trays of something like her famous white cake or the madeleine. macaroon pyramid's. get your refreshments, relax a bit after the formal site of meeting mr. lincoln. this is the double parlor. these are the two nicest rooms in the house. there are marble top tables.

there is a walnut shelf with a bust of mr. lincoln on it. that was here in 1860. not everyone in the neighborhood could say they have a bust of their husbands in their living room. this was a fancy place, where she wanted to show off. mary would have held her parties in here where she would have been discussing mr. lincoln's political aspirations. this is where people started when they came to a party. they started at the front door, met mr. lincoln here, maybe went into the dining room and picked up a bit of refreshment and met mary in the sitting room before going out of the front door again. this is where lincoln was told he had been nominated to run for president. this was the seat of power in the house. mary showcased how far her husband had come, to this

beautiful house, comfortable house, and hinted at where they were headed. stating to the world that abraham lincoln had mated it and he was ready to move on. -- made it and he was ready to move on. family. president lincoln's cottage was a seasonal home for the lincoln family. she saw it as helping the family have more privacy than they had in the white house. we are in the living room, which is not part of the typical experience. when the lincolns were living here, mary lincoln is involved in a pretty serious carriage accident. some scholars believe the carriage had been tampered with and this was actually an early assassination attempt on lincoln. when mary lincoln suffered that accident, the driver seat separated from the carriage and

the horses were startled and took off. mary had to leap on the carriage to save herself. she suffered a head injury. she is treated down at the white house. after she has been treated, she comes out here to make her recovery. we believe she did that here in mary lincoln room. it is the most isolated room and the only one that has windows on three different walls, allowing for better cross breezes to make her recovery more comfortable. in 1862, there is the imperative of having a more private place to mourn and grieve after the death of their son, willy. willy lincoln passed away in february of 1862. mary lincoln was going about the traditional cultural and social expectations of a woman in morning and felt like she could

not do this effectively at the white house. for her, there was a family and personal imperative to come here to the soldiers' home to have a place to grieve the loss of her son. one of the best documented events that took place here at the soldier's home is aseance after the death of willie lincoln. lincoln felt that mary was being taken advantage of, that she might be subject to blackmail. he asked for some of his colleagues and friends to check out the situation to see if they could figure out with this medium was doing, and how he was able to making noises he was claiming were spirits. the noises were recounted and the fact that when the lights turned on, they were able to prove that he was a fraud.

based on the historical record, it does not seem that mary was aware she was being defrauded in this way. after it was revealed that this man was a fake, she is quite embarrassed by it. there is an attempt to conceal and cover up the event. whenever mary lincoln writes about this place to friends, she talks about how dearly she loved the place and how much she was looking forward to coming out here. she saw it as fulfilling her dream of what her family would experience when they were in washington, d.c. it gave them a little bit of respite from the chaos of downtown washington, d.c. >> the personal effects of eliza johnson allawi glimpse into the life of this rather private first lady -- allow a glimpse into the life of this rather private first lady.

we have one of eliza's necklaces. it is a plain black cross. another is a sewing case. three of her favorite pastimes, being as reclusive that she was, was the embroidery work, reading poetry, and scrap booking. on the broader sense, they received political gifts while they were in the white house. we have an ivory basket that came from the queen emma of the sandwich islands. they are now the hawaiian islands. that was the first time in queen came to the white house. they had the first easter egg hunt on the white house lawn. previously it had been held at the capital. he brought it back and held it on the white house lawn so that eliza could watch.

as an invalid who had tuberculosis, she wasn't able to get out much. during the white house years, eliza chose to not assume the role of first lady lady. she was very ill at that point. she received many gifts that you brought back with her. -- she brought back with her. one of the most spectacular is a porcelain box and was given to her by noble frenchmen. it had 50 pounds of chocolate bonbons and it. -- in it. we have in letters of her children that they would go up to her room in the white house to get bonbons. charles dickens would come and visit them at the white house. she returned and brought back one of his books. she was an avid reader. this gave her a chance to remember his visit.

charles dickens is one of the most prolific writers of that time. another item she brought back is a gaming table. 500 pieces of inlaid wood. they would play games. it sits up and rolls up. it looks like a regular table. the craftsmanship is incredibly remarkable. another piece that goes back to them is actually the fruit container. it was a gift from the children of philadelphia when they were in the white house. >> julia grant was given a place to call home after following her husband from one military outpost to another. >> it was purchased to give to the grant family in appreciation for his service during the war. she said it was furnished with everything good taste could

offer. the parlor was being entertaining part of the home. -- the entertaining part of the home. julia was an avid entertainer and loved it. the family spent a lot of time in the parlor. mr. grant and their daughter played the piano. imagine the family sitting here, the general in his favorite chair, the boys listening to their sister and their mother playing songs. julia and ellen played songs for the guests. grant launched his presidential campaign from downtown. the day after their election, grant and julia opened up their home and the parlor here for people to file through an congratulate both of them on his election. this is the general and mrs. grant's bedroom. the bed is the oldest piece we have in the house and probably

the most personal. they brought it from white haven. they left it here. through all of their travels, this was always here for them when they came back. this is called a lap book. it has mrs. u.s. grant on it. she probably kept papers, pens, her correspondence in here for when she was writing letters or receiving them. religion was important for mrs. grant. her grandfather was a methodist minister. growing up, it was important to her and she instilled that in the children. they attended the methodist church. the pew they used is still marked at the church. it was the grant family pew. this is the dressing room, the most personal space in the house relating to julia grant. she would get ready for breakfast and get ready for bed

and have a little solitude. there are a lot of things that belonged to mrs. grant. we have her sewing kit that she probably would have used demand socks for the kids -- to mend socks for the kids. we have her size four shoes, and her purses. after his eight years in the white house, the grants came back here for the rest and relaxation. then they decided to go on a world tour. they were gone for over two years, visiting close to 40 countries. the grants were so popular at that time, they were like american celebrities. they were treated like royalty. they received a lot of gifts. we are fortunate enough to have some of those. two of them are here on the mantle.

these were gifts from the king of bulgaria. after the world tour, they came back for a couple of months and came back from cuba. -- and went to mexico and cuba. a very popular artist did these. the landscape paintings were given by the government of mexico. this is where the family would have their meals. julia maybe would have done some light entertaining here. this is not anything too elaborate. we have some other gifts given to the grants and this one was given to julia. this was a bronze urn given to her by the citizens of yokohama, japan. a little vase, this was given to her by the emperor of japan. on the mantle is one of the most personal pieces that julia liked best.

she actually framed it. the leaves were given to her by general grant, leaves he picked up from the holy city. she kept them, had them framed and wrote the whole story on here. julia probably had the time of her life on this world tour. she devotes almost a third of her memoirs to it. she developed a friendship with queen victoria and a very good friendship with the emperor of japan and ended up staying in japan longer than they had expected because they develop such a nice, close relationship with him. after president grant passed away, julia was living in new york and the emperor of japan came to visit julia while she was there. they still kept that friendship and had it for the rest of her life. this was always a place where the children's family could come back to and this was always considered home and was always welcoming. she speaks of galena and refers to her dear, dear galena.

>> lucy hayes was known for her kindness and compassion, not only to her family but the many other lives she touched. >> lucy was very dedicated to her family. she and her husband had eight children. five of them lived to adulthood area we know from letters that this was their gathering space. not only is this their bedroom, but this is where they spent a lot of family time together. this room is important to lucy as a mother because this is where her eighth child was born, right here in this bed. he was the only one of the eight to be born here at spiegel grove. tragically, he was never a very healthy child and when he was about 18 months old, he contracted dysentery and passed away. it was very hard on the family. this is what she took with her when she was encamped with her husband during the civil war.

it was very important to her that she be with him as often as was practical. when he was in winter camp and not actually on campaign, when he was in western virginia, she would travel in him and wrote how important it was for her to be with him. she often wrote that she was concerned about the welfare of the men in his regiment. she took this with her and would actually do some sowing and mend some uniforms. she was a good seamstress. not only did she repair soldiers' uniforms, but she made her own beautiful wedding dress. one of the things that is interesting that occurred in the space, this is where they had family christmases and they would write about these in the diary entries. they would come in here and the whole family would gather.

they had very simple presents, but this is the space where they would do this. a lot of traditions happened here as well as day-to-day activities. this is a watercolor painting of the president and lucy at the white house. there are some very vibrant colors. the same color scheme is reflected here. we know that she liked the color blue, and when we were real and reupholstering the furniture to take it back to the original and what it looked like, we found color swatches embedded within these pieces of furniture. this is the bedroom of rutherford and lucy's only daughter. her name is fanny. she was named after the president's much beloved sister. this is a painting of fanny with her father.

she was the only daughter. you can imagine a little girl growing up in a house like this with a lot of brothers. even though her parents claim she was not the favorite, she had this furniture specially made for her and had one of the bigger bedrooms. she certainly was the darling to her mother and father. this is a painting that shows lucy tending to a wounded soldier during the civil war. two causes that were important to her were veterans and soldiers and orphans, children who had been made orphans as a result of the civil war. this painting was created to hang in an orphanage in ohio where she was very supportive. it reflects those issues that were important to her. when people associated with those causes would come here and visit, they would sit in this formal parlor.

spiegel grove was host to a number of reunions of civil war veterans. the unit that rutherford served in and future president mckinley was a member of the 23rd ovi. he and his family were frequent guests here. veterans' groups were always welcomed. when they would gather on the ground and come to sit and talk, they would sit in this formal parlor. lucy was a wonderful hostess and wanted people to feel very welcome here. this is where they would sit and discuss the issues of the day. they would have hosted a number of political figures, including future presidents taft, and william tecumseh sherman was a guest as well as a number of other national political figures. as a political partner with her husband entertaining these

figures and serving in the role of hostess, that would have been incredibly important. >> lucretia and james garfield had a great love of books and knowledge and created a learning environment for their family. later, she established the prelude to a presidential library. >> this is the parlor, the way it looked during james garfield's 1880 campaign. this was the formal parlor and family room. james and lucretia spent a lot of time with their children. they lost two children in infancy, isabella and edward. those children died before the family moved here. james and lucretia's five children all have the benefit of having two very intelligent parents who strongly believed in education, that education was an emancipating factor and that led to the keys of success. the children took dance lessons,

piano lessons. we have molly's piano, which was a gift to her on her 13th birthday in 1880. she more than the boys practiced the piano, and that was the reward. here in the family parlor, like everywhere else, you see a lot of books. the children loved to read as well. some of their favorite authors were dickens and there are several volumes of his work. also william shakespeare. the family would sit and read to one another in the evening. that was one of their favorite activities. we are here in the family dining room and in the center of the table is this interesting art piece. it won an award at the philadelphia centennial. mrs. garfield absolutely adored her time at the exhibition. she visited all the tents, the

art tents, the science tents, the technology tents. she was specifically interested in the latest science and technology of the day. she would write pages and pages of what she saw at the site. a lot of people think of her as a very artistic lady. but she's also very intelligent and loved the sciences, like most families, dinnertime was a very important time of the day. a time for them all to get together and talk about what they were doing. the garfields would use this time to educate and play games with the children. sometimes they would bring books to the table and words that were mispronounced or misspelled and quiz the children. james and lucretia made everything an educational experience. >> after james garfield's death, lucretia came back to ohio and started to make her family's life on this property. she started to make a lot of

changes to the property. the downstairs summer bedroom, she turned that into other things and started using the upstairs at room. she converted the kitchen into an open reception room and had it moved into the back part of the house. most significant was the construction of the presidential memorial library. just as important as the changes she made to the property are the ones that she did not make. i am standing in the room the james garfield used as an office for the years he was living here in the house. this room pretty much looks like it did when lucretia garfield came back to the home and really found the room it was in the condition it was when james garfield walked out to be the president of the united states.

over the fireplace you saw the words carved into the wood. in memory of james garfield. it does have an interesting double meaning. it was also the title of james and lucretia's favorite poem. james garfield went to washington, became a first-time member of the u.s. house of representatives. december 1, 1863, their firstborn child, eliza died to choose only two or three years old. this was very tragic. it brought them much closer together than they had been up to that point. james garfield wrote this very sort of compassionate letter to his wife from washington, d.c. just about two weeks or so after the daughter's death. he told lucretia in the letter that he had been reading this

poem, in memoriam, and it was offering him great comfort as he tried to deal with the death of their daughter. he suggested the lucretia read the poem as well. he hoped it would bring as much comfort to her as it had brought to him. he suggested that it become their poem. and it did. when lucretia garfield had that carved into the wood here in her husband's office after his death, she was really acknowledging not only his tragic death at a young age, only 49, but also this love of literature that they had and this very special relationship they had with in memoriam. if james a garfield were to walk into this house right now, he would not recognize this room. when he was alive and living here, this was the kitchen. after his death, she started to make major changes to the property. this room was converted into this open reception room. the most significant change she made was the construction of the very first presidential memorial library.

as we get to the top of the steps, we come first to the memorial landing. it is here we find one of her favorite portraits her husband. this was done by carolyn ransom and it shows james garfield as a major general during the civil war. this is the room she came up with in her mind to memorialize her husband, to keep his memory alive for himself and for their children and the country as well. these are all books that belonged to james garfield. this is a beautiful piece sent to mrs. garfield unsolicited by someone in italy. it is a beautiful memorial piece. it is all made with small stones pressed together, and it was one of her favorite pieces. we have a beautiful marble bust

of james garfield sculpted by an italian sculptor. here we have what she called the memory room. this is a room constructed with the library in which she stored her husband's official papers and documents. it was in this room the papers were organized, cataloged and bound up and stored to keep them for posterity. a lot of interesting items in here. most significant is the wreath on the shelf there, that was actually lying on his casket while he was lying in state in the capitol building. the wreath was sent to her via the british delegation along with a handwritten note of sympathy from the queen. something interesting about this room is the fact that they used this room a lot. it was not a room where you

can't go in and touch anything. she spent a lot of time here writing letters and you will see she did use black bordered stationery. she actually used that for the rest of her life to denote a lifelong mourning for her husband. in front of the large windows, two of the garfield children actually got married in 1888 in a double wedding ceremony where the oldest garfield, molly and the only surviving daughter married their respective fiances in a double wedding ceremony in front of the windows in the library. >> the youngest first lady, frances cleveland, stirred the interest of the american public and became the fashion icon of her time. >> the public's fascination with frances cleveland -- she was a real icon. women emulated her hairstyle and she popularized everything she had and did.

this is a dress from the second administration and this is the most prized piece of all because this is the inaugural gown. this is the inaugural gown from 1893 and it stayed her family and became the family's wedding dress. the bottom of the dress is exactly the same, but the top has been remade. it originally had a satin top with large leg of mutton sleeves with bows on the shoulders. a lace from the original dress was used to re-create a new bodice and make it a more fashionable, modern wedding dress. even her everyday clothes were very stylish. a lot of them look like something you could wear now. this is a jacket.

black with this beautiful blue velvet. it is definitely daywear. this is a more evening appropriate piece. this would have had a matching skirt and you can see the beautiful lace and sequins. slightly more ornate daytime vest. this would have a matching collar and you can wear it with a short waisted skirt. it is 100 years old now. and one of the earlier wedding dresses on display for many years, we changed the dresses around and this dress was on display. this is a reception dress she would have worn during the

second administration. this is when the sleaves became much larger. -- sleeves became much larger. this is a beautiful skirt and bodice with a matching evening gown. these large puffed sleeves and butterflies. a description talks about the butterflies looking like they would alight from her shoulders. you can see the damage light can do. the velvet was originally this color and over years of display, it has faded. frances cleveland is so popular. people are imitating her clothes and hairstyle, but they want a piece of frances for themselves. pictures of the first lady became extremely popular.

you can purchase your own pictures of ms. cleveland to have in your home. advertisers and manufacturers make an array of souvenirs that you can purchase and have mrs. cleveland in your house am in your home -- your house, in your home. you can purchase a small painted glass portrait. you can have plates of mrs. cleveland. ms. cleveland can convince you to buy a product. the first couple together. she is used in campaigns. while we have grover cleveland running for president, we also have mrs. cleveland running for first lady. here is a set of campaign playing cards where you are electing the president, vice president, and first lady. frances cleveland in the second administration looks a little different now. she's a young mother, a

confident matron. this is a pretty piece you can have in your home. the same image is used in this ribbon. you can have a souvenir that not only commemorates the world fair, it commemorates the campaign. the collection is too vast to all be on display at one time. what is not currently on the floor is stored in here, and they can be used for exhibition purposes. this is frances cleveland's wedding dress. frances cleveland was an incredibly popular bride. she married the president in a white house ceremony, the only white house ceremony for the first lady. the bodice filled in with a neckpiece.

it goes around and create a softening effect. it is a long-sleeved dress, and has a wonderful long train. even the underside of the clothes have this beautiful trim and this sweeping train. this collection contains more than clothing. we have the public pieces and personal pieces. one of my favorite things in the entire collection is this box. each of the guests were given a satin covered box painted with the bride and groom's initials to hold a piece of wedding cake. before the wedding, they found time to sign the card for every cake box. this would have been a piece of cake.

and this particular cake box was given to the minister. the minister who performed the wedding. he was the minister at the first presbyterian church in washington d.c. a testament to the public's fascination. this is a piece of sheet music, the cleveland wedding march, composed in honor of the wedding because it was not the wedding march played at the wedding. it's obviously decorated with pictures of mr. and mrs. cleveland. the images of the cleveland together will be part of popular culture for the next 12 years. >> first lady caroline harrison was interested in the painting of china dinner wear, and was the first to establish a white house china collection. >> china painting became a national hobby because of caroline harrison.

women all over the country, once they heard the president's wife was a china painter, they wanted to do that to. i would credit caroline harrison with creating enthusiasm among women for painting. we have other examples of caroline's painting. she loved flowers. i guess i was her number one subject, to paint flowers -- that was her number one subject, to paint flowers. on the bottom shelf, we have birds. she loved birds and nature and she created these beautiful bird plates. we have a couple of things on the wall she painted and gave as gifts. when she was in the white house, she did this frequently. one of the pieces was given to a servant who retired and she wrote on the back of it, thanking him for his service.

then we have a piece the harrisons gave to the stanfords of stanford university. it was a gift painted by caroline and when the museum opened, stanford university sent it back to us so we now have it here in the dining room. >> when she came to the white house, she was very interested in how the place worked. this is still the ground floor but it was considered the basement because the kitchen was down here. the storage for food and tableware and such. she came down and found it was rather dilapidated and dirty, sort of ominous, and she tried to spruce it up and went through the cabinets and found old pieces of china and asked servants if they could tell how old the piece is. she started the idea of trying to catalog and create a sense of what the chinas were.

she had a plan for putting display cases in the state dining room, but that never came to fruition. she is credited with being the initiator of the concept of a permanent china collection at the white house. she was interested in designing china and wanted it to be american. there was not a strong enough porcelain manufacturing industry when she started looking into new china, so she decided they would let a french company make the blanks and she would provide the design. it was not a full-service. she didn't try to order 12 or 15 pieces per plate setting. it was designed with a shape that was the lincoln-era shaped. this is a soup late or tea plate soup plate. she designed the border. she felt represented american agricultural plants.

the soup plates and breakfast plates were made in the blue. and then a series of cups and saucers. so there weren't all the other shapes you would have, such as bowls and shapes that went with it. >> you have caroline harrison's white house diary, and this was something we don't have out very often. she kept the diary, and you can see it's very fragile. she mentioned several different things. she mentions going to arlington cemetery and decorating the soldier's grave site and mentions riding with benjamin to

the soldiers' home and hospital. some of the things near and dear to her here were working with the asylum and she continued to do some of that while she was in washington visiting the hospitals and whatnot. she mentioned having the floral arrangements for several different banquets and dinners. one was the pan-american conference of countries meeting there and mentions decorations for that as well. this was the dinner at the arlington in washington, d.c. and you can see the table setting. we have the vice president, president, and different delegations sitting at that particular dinner.

she talks a lot about the centennial celebration for the centennial of george washington's inauguration. things from the banquets and whatnot here. one of the parades was seven and a half hours long. and also very personal and family related things. she mentioned how she's is feeling, what the weather is like. one of the things he talks about is the christening of their young grunt debtor -- granddaughter. she said they used water from the river jordan that her sister had brought back from a trip over there. we have some of that water in our collection today. we actually have some water in there as well. she was christened in the blue room of the white house in a private family ceremony at that time.

she also mentions christmas at the white house and having the tree put out for the grandchildren. they have the first decorated christmas tree in the white house. and she mentions the gifts given at that time, including opera glasses. we have her opera glasses given to her that she mentions in the diary as well. >> even though she was in poor health and suffered from epilepsy, she still contributed by crocheting slippers and donating them to charity and presenting them as gifts. >> what is wonderful about this is that inside, it has a picture of william mckinley. this is something we see in a lot of her personal belongings. this was her sewing bag. she would keep the crochet items in here. this is one of her crochet

needles and it is her favorite color, blue. inside, we have a picture of william mckinley. even when he was away from her, she would have something to remind her of him. she was known for her crocheted slippers and would spend hours crocheting these slippers. we think she made approximately 4000 pairs in her lifetime. these are unique for the soles that they have. they were leather soles on the bottom. she would make them in various sizes. we have pairs from a child size and they were usually made in a variation of blue or gray. or an ivory color. these represent the basic colors she would use. since she was not able to do other types of work as the first lady, this was one of the things she could contribute. she would donate these to a charity or war veterans or she would donate them to the

auctions to raise money. to see some of the more fragile and important pieces, we have to go into our main storage area. this is where we keep the white house dresses and other artifacts. this dress is my favorite. we are in the middle of a conservation process so we can have these dresses repaired, so they will be able to be on a annequin. favorite.ne is my it has silver beads. it has tiny little mirrors.

this would have reflected lilingt beautifulfully. this is typical of ida's style. the fashion would have been high collar. the puffy sleeves. although the end of the decade they toned down a little bit. her favorite was this ivory color. she also loved blue. most of the dresses we have are typical of that color. she didn't have a lot in her about. be excited as reflected by her collection. a conversation about first ladies continues every monday night on c-span. and you can watch all of the programs so far in our series at cspan.org/first ladies. >> and we also plan an encore presentation coming in august weeknights at 9:00 p.m.

eastern. it starts monday an august 5. then in september season two of first ladies influence and your questions. live monday nights at 9:00 eastern starting on september 9 ere at c-span. >> i think to be an american citizen is to be one of the paragons of freedom and democratic principles and a beacon for the rest of the world. i think we've done that in the last 200 years and will do it better in the next 200 wreers. >> do you think americans have any particular responsibilities or rights? >> absolutely. we're the number one consumers in the world so that gives us the responsibility to consume responsibly. we're learning and we're going

to improve. >> i'm the top of my class. first i was failing and then a teacher helped me out. i'm a straight a student now. so that's how i feel about america. second chances, and we have a good president. that's it. >> to be an american citizen is something everyone ames at become someone who is respected who doesn't stop at airports and being asked for things like we have no idea what they are asking about for not being american citizens and to live in a country that is free and respects everyone's beliefs. this is how i look at it. i come from the middle east and i come every year, twice every

year at least and i'm here now on a conference as a teacher. >> i'm from france originally and before i came in the u.s. i learned a lot about americans through school. the idea was more like economical i would say, successful americans business owner and all that. when i came to the u.s. that's what i started to do create my own business in massage therapy. i would say that the main difference between french and american is food. so political point of view and i guess lifestyle are pretty similar. you have a lot of people in d.c. that are really fighting for their political point of view like in france. but food is the main thing. eating differently would be the

main point i would say to become an american. >> on the next "washington journal" nancy of the washington post looks at the use of big data to drive decision making on a range of issues. then a recent report mission readiness, military leaders for kids which examines the possible benefits of the prekindergarten early education program. then economic analysis and u.s. travel association talk about how much americans and foreign visitors to the united states spend in travel and tourism. plus your e-mails, phone calls and tweets. "washington journal" is live every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> one of the points that we make in this book is did it make any difference to have

direct popular election. we come down on the side yes it did make a difference. that senators began to act like house members which is not something any senator wants to hear. but that means they were out scaveninging for votes. they had to deal with the people. if you have a state legislature and there are 26 members, all you need is 14 votes and you can easily pay off and they did in some cases pay off 14 senators, paying off their mortgages in a couple of cases to buy their election. >> more with his torn emeritus sunday night at 8:00 on q and a. >> onight on c-span, former tonight on c-span, former president bill clinton and new jersey governor chris christie talk about winning for and persevering through natural

disasters. then a discussion on citizenship in america and how it relates to political engagement, unity service, and self governance. then a look the origins of instagram after two stanford graduates else the photo filter technology company in eight weeks before selling it to facebook for eight -- for $1 billion. next, former president bill clinton and new jersey governor chris christie talk about mining and persevering through natural disasters. they give advice to governors on ways to plan for future events -- events. held by the clinton global initiative meeting in chicago, his is 45 minutes. >> now we are going to have a little fun. i want to invite to the stage a man whose reputation i have virtually ruined more than nce.

we are both the basketball fans, and governor christie used to have seats right behind mine at the big east tournament. remember the first time i sat own and talk to him, i thought, this is going to wreck this guy's career. it will show pictures of him talking to me. maybe he can get elected in new jersey, but everybody else would say, oh my god, he is consorting with a liberal. he never blinked. as far as he was concerned, as long as i could talk about basketball, it was ok with him. i am honored that he has joined us today. i do want to say in the interest of my commitment to keep cgi completely nonpartisan and we did invite my governor governor cuomo to join him, but e could not be here today. we are going to talk about

something that is really important, that is, what happens when the cameras go home after a disaster? this is so important. so to set this up, when i was president, i went to california 29 times in four years, and part of it was just one natural disaster after another. they had everything but a plague of locusts. then we had a 500 year flood in the mississippi river, and to rebuild it, he had to rebuild all of the communities -- it was impractical for some, because they were in a floodplain, and then all of these other things happened. then we come to hurricane sandy. even the horrible tornadoes that leveled joplin, that have now stricken oklahoma, we had for nato's as far north as massachusetts -- tornadoes as far north as massachusetts and new york city last year.

we need to give more thought on the responsibilities of leadership and how to plan for what happens after the disaster. mayor bloomberg, as i mentioned earlier, just last week revealed that $20 billion plan to try to make new york city resilient in the face of what is almost certainly going to be rising water levels in the years ahead. it is a big challenge. governor christie received an enormous amount of publicity, entirely well deserved, for his passionate advocacy for the people of new jersey and the work he did in the immediate aftermath of sandy. now there are no cameras there, but there are a lot of people still in trouble, and he is still doing that work. that is what i want all of you to think about. many of you live and ommunities that are vulnerable

to one or another kind of natural disaster. we need to think about what happens when the worst is over and you have to plan for tomorrow. lee's join me in welcoming governor of new jersey, governor chris christie. so, even as effective as you are, and as i once was, we could not stop the big east from dissolving. >> no. >> after we get rid of this

resilience thing, i want to do figure out how television revenues from football games can stop short of dissolving the greatest basketball conference in american history. it was really sad. >> what will we do next spring? >> watch a lot of television. thank you for coming. thank you for bringing her family. your wife and son are here. where are they? tand up. christie's son is a student at princeton where he plays aseball. he is ok with the big east issolving. once you got through that terrible emergency period, and all of the gripping pictures of people showing up, what did you do next? what have you done to this day from the time the emergency

ended about the places that were devastated in the places that remain vulnerable? > it is hard for me not to ook back on it to pinpoint when the emergency ended. it is when you get into the aftermath of the situation. our view was, the first thing you have to do is return people to normalcy, and we define normalcy in five ways -- get their power back on, get the wastewater treatment plants or can again so they have clean water, get the gas stations reopened, get the state highways reopened, and get their kids back in school. we knew that when we got those five things done, than probably 90% of the state would be back to a sense of normalcy. i would gauge it from there. three weeks out, we had most

that under control. as you move forward, what you realize is this is going to be a years long enterprise. sandy in new jersey alone, 355,000 homes were severely damaged or destroyed. 355,000. what you are looking at is, how do you give people a sense of hope and also do it in a smart way? the first thing we did was sit down with the mayors in the most effected -- the most affected towns. in new jersey, it is a very much home rule state. they controlled their local zoning and ordinances. they had to be full partners. we bring the mayors and. i met with a lot of them one-on-one to say, i wanted have an an honest conversation with your residence. we are willing to ask the federal government to partner with us on a buyout program to buyout homes and properties that really should no longer be standing because they have been so perpetually flooded over time.

i'm not going to force people out. i want you to start having that conversation. in the places that do not want to sell out, how are we going to protect it? we came up with three ways to go about protecting them -- first, in the jersey shore communities, not all of our shore communities at army corps of engineers designed dune systems. there is lots of debate about this -- are they worth it or aren't they? sandy settled score. in the towns that had army corps of engineers designed doing systems, the damage was minimal. and the ones that did not, the damage was complete. now there is no longer a debate in new jersey about whether we should have them as a safety precaution. that is number one. i pitched to president obama

that that is one of the things that had to be included in the aid package, the ability to complete the dune system along the entire 130 mile long atlantic coast of new ersey. congress agreed. we have the money to do that. that is what we are working on now to do that. second, you had to deal with the ordinances and towns regarding the building code and work with the state to now deal with using better materials and more resilient types of standards. what we saw in new jersey was in an older town, a lot of big, beautiful homes on the ocean that were built in the 1950s or 1960s -- they look beautiful -- but they could not stand up to the storm. they had no dunes and very old homes under old codes. we have to bring those codes up in every town to deal with the new realities.

our homes have to be much more hardened if they are going to be in these areas. you need to do that third. you have to work with fema on the flood maps and see how much you have to raise existing houses. i think what you're going to see in the jersey shore, when you come back in another couple of years, most homes within a four or five block area of the ocean will be now on stilts, pillars to permit the water that comes underneath to not create structural damage. all of those conversations had to be had at the local level in ur state because new jerseyans have a tradition of being fiercely home rule, tonight --

do not like being imposed state downward, and will fight brutally to prevent it. my job was to go to these towns and convince them that this is something that needed to do. so far, with some exceptions, i have been successful. that is part of what we had to do to deal with the homeowner side of things, let people know that this is a new world in a different world, and if you want to live here, and if you do not want to sell out, this is what you've got to do to make the next time a storm comes, avoid the risk to human life and damage to property. >> how many people took the option to take the buyout? >> very few comparatively speaking. although in certain towns -- i'm finding that in some of our more middle-class towns -- those folks have had it. jon bon jovi's birthplace, we are buying out probably 375 homes. those people are willingly doing it. we will probably get the first

half of those bought out by the september. pretty quickly after the storm, within one year, those people will be out, and have the money in their hands to go to another community. my approach has been, i want to buy hold neighborhoods. buying houses piecemeal will not do anything. you will still have to deal with destruction in those neighborhoods in the aftermath of it. what we have been encouraging is for folks to get together as neighborhoods and to say, all of us need to go together. and sayers still -- sayerville, and another time, we will buy about 500 homes. in phase two of the federal funding we are getting which ill come in october, that will go down the coast and start offering the same kind of deals to others. >> once you buy the homes and you are in the position with the land and whatever remains, what are you going to do?

what are you going to do with the land? >> passive use and try to set it up so we know it floods there -- let's use the lands and work the terrain to try to protect other parts of town. use natural approaches that will allow us to slow water down as it goes through. not walls, but natural types of structures, but nothing on the land for any human use. what we want to do is to use it as a buffer against neighborhoods that are closer. >> is their federal money to help to do that, to restore the land to its natural condition? >> yesterday. and the hazard mitigation funds we are getting in the aid package, it helps us to mitigate against future hazards. >> if you do this and complete

this project in a given community, will it have any effect on the availability and cost of flood insurance for the people that remain behind? >> no question. he fact is if we are able to do it effectively, for them, it will probably get them out of -- without getting too deep in the weeds -- out of the high velocity zones of water into either a regular flood zone or even out of a flood zone ompletely. the ripple effect for it will be significant. >> i do not want to get in the weeds, but i think this is important. the thing i love about the eachfront for new york and new jersey is it is one of the last remaining big stretches were middle-class people have real homes, real neighborhoods, real communities, real routes.

i'm shocked by the number of people who have come up to me personally -- chelsea organized a day where our foundation took 1000 people to the rockaways -- they had little publicity -- a lot of people here at cgi worked there, and i had so many people come up to me to say, i grew up here. all of their parents had standard middle-class jobs. i was afraid that when this property was vacated it would become the stuff of land speculation and all of these people would be thrown off the land. both you and our governor cuomo in new york have tried to keep the character of the place. in doing that, the insurers are really important. the availability of insurance and the affordability of insurance -- that is why i asked you about it. i think all of them should know that because there are similar decisions that have to be made in tornado alley. that is where i was governor. most of the years i was governor, we had the highest tornado destruction rate in the country. now it has moved little bit a tad north.

you see southern oklahoma city and joplin. how much have you or your government had to work with the insurance industry since this happened? >> flood insurance now is being ompletely governmentally controlled. by fema. if you want to buy flood insurance, which have to new jersey if you are in a flood area and you have a mortgage, the banks will require it. the only place you can buy as the national flood insurance plan. that is not completely controlled by the government. they will have private brokers who will help them to sell it, but the insurer is the national flood insurance when within fema. the way we've got to work with insurance companies, it has been the business insurances and homeowners, and homeowners pay very little on this because

every homeowners plan that i know, there is a flood exclusion. it predominately fell on the national flood insurance plan. that is why the real sandy relief package is about $50 billion, because $10 billion of the $60 billion went to the national flood insurance land, it should been underfunded by congress and the administration. we have worked with nfip. it is challenging. sometimes it seems they are more concerned about an oig audit than the people that are buying insurance from them. e have worked with the administration to help keep pressure on them. they are the only game in town. >> i think it is really nteresting -- the coastal land

presented different rating challenges to them because most of these people were set up to deal with rivers overflowing their banks, so we had a 500 year flood in the lower mississippi. i think it was 1993 or 994. we relocated entire towns that were built on a floodplain because we did not have enough information to know that those areas were going to flood more often than every 100 years. we know something generally like that about the oceans, but i think a lot of these guys are hellshocked because they are not sure that all of the prediction models are out of the window. >> it's true. for a place like new jersey, there is a real romantic attraction to the jersey shore. for folks who live there, whether it is their primary residence or they go to vacation there and they rent those homes, they are close or on the ocean, new jerseyans do ot want to give that away,

even in the face of these obvious challenges that these storms have brought. here is an emotional connection by the people. we just reopened when the two of the 23 boardwalks on the jersey shore by memorial day. -- 22 of the 23 boardwalks on the jersey shore by what -- memorial day. i was going to a number of boardwalks, and i cannot tell you how many people came up to me, grabbing at me saying, thank you for giving us the shore back. there is an emotional connection. as a leader, you have to recognize that part of it, it is not not just going to be a calculation -- it is an emotional connection could you have to do things to try to give people the ability to still have that emotional connection to the place they grew up, where they took their hildren. not those children are taking their children there.

that is part of the challenge from a leadership perspective. >> let's talk about what we should do next. what should we do, what advice would you give the governors and mayors of these coastal towns that have not been hit yet? what can they do to improve resilience, to improve resistance, to reduce damage from a storm as severe as sandy now? i got to thinking about this, because obviously, we could just watch what you guys have been through in new york and new jersey, to a lesser extent in connecticut, and say, well, we should do as much of this is possible, and we ought to be able to do it at lower cost if we start now all up and down the atlantic coast and into the ulf area, but it looks to me

like the funds do not flow until something bad happens. if you were designing this, what would you recommend to the governors and the mayors of these communities, and what would you recommend to the national government in terms of redesigning our response? >> you are right that we had a number of these systems that have been authorized by congress, and some of them were authorized by congress for 20 years but never funded. you have to have a cost-benefit analysis of whether or not you need to do this upfront because what happens now is, as you said, the funds do not flow until there is a disaster. then you are dealing with it in a hyper elevated state in terms of cost and demand. we have companies coming from all over the country to help redo this rather than doing it in an orderly way because we are back in the middle of urricane season again. hat i would say to other governors is you need to look at your own funds that you use

grid every state along the coast has this. there is beach replenishment funds that they put to either a dedicated fee or tax from general funds monies, and start to look at, instead of doing these replenishments to make the beach broader and prettier, but to take some of that money and saying, let's build doing systems. to me, the only way besides the ordinance exchanges in making the homes are resilient, the only way to do this on the coast, it is a type of natural system that will protect you against this type of storm surge. whether it is a wall or a dune system, either one, those are the things you will have to do. i think states have always looked at it along the coast and the monies for beach replenishment, it is a tourism investment -- i want to make

the beach broader, ready or, ore blankets, more chairs. now you have to start thinking, i've got to protect the property in land, and the only way to do that is through dunes. they can push congress, although in the current limate, whether or not congress will appropriate that money is questionable. states have already spent along the coast significant amounts of this money in other ways. maybe they need to redirect t. that is what we are doing now ot only with the federal money but with the state money, i am now redirecting it towards paying for our share of the dune building because there is a cost share with the federal government. >> what about -- is there some way to use the insurance system to require that any new housing built conform to new standards? >> absolutely. we are doing it. we are giving people a choice essentially. if your house is 50% destroyed or greater, you have no

choice. you must build to the new fema standards. if you are at 51% destruction of your home or greater, it is require that you rebuild to new federal standards, but what we are saying to folks who are not to at all or less than that, we are offering to them the opportunity to raise their ouses now. the benefit is going to be, they are going to cut their flood insurance costs by two thirds if they do it. the upfront investment of about the $2000, which is the average $50,000, which is about the average, you are going to save that amount of money within three years of the investment, maybe two years. we are trying to give people a ix of the regulatory requirement, and those for who

are less than the 51%, we try to give you a powerful economic incentive that if you elevate now, that that investment will pay for itself within two or three years. >> the reason i am talking to all of about it -- you may live in nebraska and think this is crazy, but the truth is if you live in nebraska, you've got probably the same kind of considerations about either local river flooding or tornadoes -- we do not talk enough about this generally and ublicly. the only country that has ever really done this right is the netherlands because it is so small, and they were totally flooded. at the beginning of this year,

i took my first trip to africa o see some of the work we were doing in northwest africa. in nigeria, which we associate with oil systems that do not work, brownouts, religious and political conflicts, a developer is building a 9.5 kilometer wall with interlocking concrete parts to let water in, designed by a dutch firm, based on their experience, and they have already recovered 10 million square meters of land to rotect the point of lagos, which is an island. it is a first time in a developing country i have seen the kind of preparation to avoid disaster that i think we

should be doing all over the world. if you have a population map of america, and you look at the percentage of our people that live from main all the way down to florida and around in the gulf coast and at the pacific coast, as is something we need to think about. we need to redefine leadership beyond just how you respond in an emergency to how you keep the emergencies from happening. > no question. >> he's done a good job. i wanted you to hear this. the enduring image most americans have of you is standing there in your jacket, grieving with their people, working with them, and working with the president, and you got both praise and damnation for ignoring the political differences that you had then and still have with the president and all of us in the other party, to do something that was really important grade i wanted them to hear what you are doing now because i think this should be as unifying as that.

we've got to stop waiting for something horrible to happen and then spend 10 times as much as we would have to spend to eep it from happening. >> the people in nebraska should care about it because they are paying for it. right? even if you have no interest in this subject, you are paying to rebuild the jersey shore right now. nebraska, iowa, kansas, south dakota, north dakota, you are paying it. arkansas, of course, mr. president. it is an issue because of the number of people who live there and the expense associated with rebuilding in that area. one of the things i was trying to explain to president obama was, when he took the first two were there two days after the storm, i said, mr. president, in a state like new jersey, to rebuild 365,000 homes in some

of the most, if not the most, expensive real estate in america in new jersey and new york, this is incredibly costly and one we have to try to avoid doing another time after this. that is part of the argument i made to him about the investment of billions of dollars that is going to cost the federal government and state government to build that dune system, but to do it is going to avoid -- the loss to new jersey in the storm of property was $39 billion -- so to invest $3 billion or $4 billion to try to prevent another $39 billion and losses seems to be whether you are republican or democrat a pretty smart investment to make for the country. >> just close the circle on his, if you were, if you could

make federal policy by fiat -- >> how great would that be? >> looks better to me all the ime. how would you redesign this? would you put this prevention and resilience function, would you put it in fema or lodge it somewhere else, or would you set up the funds for which states could apply if they had a preapproved plan -- how would you structure this so that we americans could minimize future losses and maximize future security? >> i would tell you that i would take it out of fema. i think fema's mission is getting too broad for it to be good at all of it. i think fema should be what it says, which is when you need to manage an emergency and natural

disaster, they come in and help you manage through the emergency. the immediate crisis. i think within the homeland security department, taking this out of fema, and whether or not you put it in noaa, or you put it in a function like that and say, these are people who will have long-term planning responsibilities for dealing with resilience -- i think matching funds or the state has to pony up as well for long-term planning makes sense, that the federal government should not have to absorb all of these costs themselves. you work and what the cost share would be. everybody would have skin in the game. if the feds are paying for everything, you might want to do things in one way, but if you have to justify to your home taxpayer the investment, you might do it another. i think it is hard to get the national flood insurance plan out as a sole source of flood insurance.

i think it was a bad idea. i think you need to get the private sector involved in this as well. that kind of responsibility inside the government exclusively, any type of monopoly is not good. i think the government had a monopoly on providing a particular type of insurance, and it creates a bureaucracy that is self-defeating because now they are more worried about oig investigations and audits than they are about paying claims. oig gives them more of a headache than any common citizen could. they react as bureaucracies due to that. to do with this over the long term, to make the flood insurance both affordable and responsive to the customer, they should take it out of the federal government and allow that to be handled by the private insurers and homeowners. >> for all of you listening, maybe most of you know what

noaa is, but it is the national oceanic survey, and it is a great agency because they monitor the movement of the oceans. their ability to predict the likelihood of things like thish to imagine the effects of greater ice melts up north and other kinds of external factors in the ocean and the likelihood of more storms and where up-and-down the continental united states, that is quite high. i never thought about using them before, but at least they could be a resource in trying to make good judgments about what the insurance rates could be. >> i think they could help prioritize the resiliency money. where do we have the greatest risks for this to happen again? focus federal resources on the place where there is the greatest risk the most quickly. it is going to be a long-term rocket for our country to deal with the coastline of the

continental country and to deal with these types of problems. it seems to me that if they are in the business of predicting where we are at the greatest risks, the could be the agency better than fema who could be making the decisions on how to prioritize funds and a time when we have limited resources in the country on all types of infrastructure demand that we ave. this is another infrastructure demand, this protection of our coastline, and i think that is one idea -- none of them are perfect -- it is one idea that ould work. >> do you think there is enough awareness between what you have been through and joplin and oklahoma and all of these things we have been through in the country -- now we are dealing with these unusually severe wildfires out west -- that we might be able to get a

huge bipartisan majority of governors to ask for this kind of reform? >> i think so. so many more of us are now getting affected directly by t. i think it is very difficult to understand this until you have been through it. i think the overwhelming nature of a significant natural disaster -- to give you some perspective, there are 8.8 million people in new jersey -- when i woke up a morning of tuesday, october 30, 7 million eople in new jersey were without power. the state was closed. i went on google earth that night and looked. as he went up the east coast, he saw the lights in the evening. if you get to new jersey, it was dark. until you go through something like that, all of this is conceptualizing. i think governors are practical folks most of the time. they are trained to do with the problem in front of them. i think you're getting -- i have spoken with governor

fallon and oklahoma who now has an even greater understanding of what it is like to see this kind of destruction and how to deal with the human cost and economic cost -- i think we are building towards that. the one thing i will tell you, there are no partisan lines on this one when it happens. you're reaching out to everybody you can print i was reaching out to every governor i could to say, can you urge your utility companies to send us crews? can you send some national guard troops up? i think this type of crisis breaks down a lot of the barriers between us. >> one reason i ask is, i ran five times the governor, and not one time did anybody ask me on the street, in a press interview, or during a debate what i would do about any of this.

i lived in a state that then had the highest incidence of tornado damage rates in the country repeatedly. i followed your governors race closely. nobody ever asked you about it. we were all arguing about the education policy, and to this one or that one get hired or not. you remember the whole thing. >> yes, i do. >> this is really important. we've got to start to become a resilient society. we know we are resilient internally, but if you plan to resist the worst destruction, if you plan for a quick spring back, you can do this and minimize these damages. i wanted all of you to know how much work he has done on this. i think it is really important. we see these disasters. they have these indelible impressions in our mind. we form conclusions about what people did or did not do.

what matters equally as much is what happens the day after everybody else is gone, and you are left with trying to put people's lives back together. >> the other thing that contributes to this -- you are right, we never do get asked about it in the concept of campaigns unless you just got through something like this -- uniquely, when this kind of thing happens, republicans, independents, democrats, you urn to government. no one in my state was arguing to me that on tuesday, october 30, governor, you should privatize the response to this torm from here on out. this is one of those things that i think regardless of where you fall on the ideological spectrum, you would agree that this is government's

esponsibility. if it is, and demonstrably so, when you look at joplin, moore, sandy in new york and new jersey, then governors need to be thinking about these things much more than we do before. to be focusing on how we prevent this kind of severe damage in the future. one thing i can tell you for sure is you never want to go through it again. you do not. i can tell you that the other thing that contributes to this that makes people skeptical and not want to plan is the way the media covers this. any kind of storm, there is nothing that the networks love more than an oncoming storm. everybody is like ok, get in front of a television set, the storm is coming to me. i want to make it sound as bad as possible. if you make it sound really bad, people will stay in front of their tv and say, tell me more.

when it is not bad, when it is just ok, people start to say, he hell with it. we had hurricane irene the year before. all the national weather service and other people are telling me, governor, this is going to be catastrophic. ok, so i will prepare for that. i evacuated the entire new ersey shore. i said, get the hell off the beach. mary pat said to me, did you really tell people to get the hell off the beach on television? i said, this is new jersey, i felt like they did not understand. it wasn't so bad on the shore. we had inland flooding. now when we had sandy and i told people, this is going to be bad, the rule people on the shore. i went to the shore the days before and had to tell people personally -- they would say, you said that last year -- part

of the problem for planning is that people become cynical about whether we can really predict these things. if we predict them wrong, then why should we invest the money o do it? that contributes to the thesis of your question -- there is a growing bipartisan consensus on this because so many of us have now gone through it. once you go through it in my state, people are going to get off the hell of the beach really quick because they saw what happened. >> i am looking at a sign that says, governor must depart for airport. neither one of us control the chicago airport yet. let's give governor christie a big hand. [applause]

national captioning institute] national able satellite corp. 2013] >> to be american -- america is a land of opportunity so there are so many things you could accomplish in my lifetime and my daughter has all those opportunities. that's the great thing about america is she can do whatever she wants, doesn't matter her sex, her nagsnalt or race. i think that opportunity our forefathers fought for is present and available to me and i think it's great i can use that and build a great life and

be happy. that's what i think it means to be american. >> well, you got to know the history of america and i know my history, like my culture. i consider myself american. i'm very thankful for what i have. i know if i had asked questions to my grandmother it would be a totally different answer. i feel you got to play your part, do the right thing, go to work. can't be relying on the government to pay for your living. i think that's a big thing a lot of people on welfare or people who do have money they still try to use the system and that plays a big role. people like who do really need money. i think if everybody would be honest and work hard this country could be grearter than it is. >> i am canadian.

i'm married to an american and have an american daughter now. i would say to be an american ou live in a free country, you have so many opportunities to grow and to do different things with your life. and you can honestly change the course of your life from wherever you are at. i find a big difference in the u.s. and canada in u.s. you are pushy and in canada we are more relaxed. we do our best to move ahead but not as pushy. that is something i've notice sd different. but i'm true to my homeland but i do love living in the us. that's what i think it means to be an american. >> friday starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern congressman john lewis talks about his participation in the civil rights movement. he spoke about them last month.

see it at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> later part of the cable show held in washington will hear about the impact of technology on education as well as remarks from jennifer lopez discussing her new cable network which targets latino americans. also friday afternoon two journalists talk about the future of medicare and whether it's a solution for inflated medical prices. that is at 5:15 eastern on c-span. >> next a discussion on how the definition of citizenship in america has changed over the decades. pan list talk about citizenship and how it relates to community service and self-governance. t's an hour.

>> good afternoon everybody, welcome. thank you so much for joining us here in this wonderful space for this conversation. i am an argue author and founder of an organization called citizen university. i'm moderator today. one of our pan panelist wasn't able to be with us and we're going to channel him as best we can. i want to introduce our fantastic panelists here. then frame up the issue a bit. we're going to begin a conversation about imagining citizenship and we want to to alot a good chuck of time for a conversation throughout the room here. if have you questions but conversation is very much in the spirit of what we're talking about here. let me introduce.

to my left is heather smith who is the president of rock the vote. many of you know rock the vote began over 20 years ago in affiliation with mtv and works today to mobilize young people not only to vote but to engage in civic activity across the board and become more aware and enl kated. we'll talk a lot more about what rock the vote does. only in this context to heather's left is our friend mark. mark known to many of you because he's been here before was one of the co-founders of the tea party patriots when the tea party first came to fruition. left the tea party as an organization and founded his own called citizens for

self-governance who are working to reinvigorate self-governance so we'll talk more about that. next i'm denighted to have on is one christina who of the nation's leading voices and activists for comprehensive immigration reform but also for the community of undocumented americans. she has been a champion as an undocumented member of our community. i believe as we all sat down here the immigration bill went to floor debate in the united states senate. here.are right on the last but not least needing no introduction to anybody has ever been to aspen or listened to a radio or opened the newspaper particularly the washington post.

>> we're going to begin, i wanted to pose a common question to all four of panelists and let them speak to that then we'll go to a more organic conversation. the opening question given this moment we're in, we're in a remarkable moment, this week supreme court decision, what's been going on over debate about the n.s.a. and about government and its relationship to citizens, the i.r.s. scandal, all these things giving us opportunity and obligation for us to reflect on what does it mean to be a citizen? citizenship is a status under law some people have and some do not. but it's a set of norms and values. it's also a set of privileges and immunities to use the language of the constitution, a bundle of rights.

we don't talk about citizenship is also a bundle of responsibilities. that's a theme we're going to bring out in this conversation. in this moment that word five ten years ago had a musty 1950's eat your vegetables feel to it. now it's hot. people are reckoning with what it means to be a citizen in this moment. my question is in this moment, given this time we're in, how would you define or redefine citizenship here in the united states? >> thank you. it's a good question. we started thinking more and more about this recently in light of the immigration and what the dreamers were doing around the country. if we said citizenship most people thought legal status. we thought wait a minute, it's more than that. it's about if you call yourself an american, regardless of your status, if you call this place home, then it's your role and

obligation to make this country work for you. as an organizer of young people 18-29 years old, i think we have a real opportunity to redefine what it means now. i try to get young people fired up about all sorts of issues and get them engaged but the thing they've been most passionate about the past few years was the arab spring. and it was seeing people like themselves fighting and losing their lives in many cases to have a democracy. that really hit home. and we started to see this solidarity and people posting things and wanting to do more with our organization as a result fments and so i think we have young people now realizing that democracy is something that you fight for. this concept of self-rule. so we have to expand that definition further now to something you have to keep

working at. as one of our partners in this democracy is not a noun but in fact it's a verb. so as we redefine citizenship for young people today, it's not about participation and voting, but it's about making this country work for you. >> that's the same spirit, mark, that citizens for self-governance are activated by self-rule. >> it is. that is what drove the tea party movement. it was a sense of disconnect from our system of govern nance. the statistics are different than what the media tell you. roughly 20% of members of the tea party movement are democrats are independents. they are not there because they are right wingers or republicans, they are there because they felt whoever they voted for, however they participated in democracy by voting, they weren't getting what they voted for. it seemed as somebody on the

right, though not a republican, i felt i wasn't getting what i voted for. i travel around the country and ask a set of questions no matter what audience theuestions like, who in room voted for continuing $1 trillion deficits? you can raise your hand. yeah, you see, i have not found the person in america. and i'me not voting for if you're for it -- not going for and i'm not voting for it, why is it happening? the closer the government debt to the system, the greater connection. congressional approval ratings are at an all-time low. to keep going lower even when you don't think get lower. approval ratings for local governments and to run at 60%

and higher. people like to self govern and participate and they are satisfied with the results. for us, redefining citizenship means defining it down. it means meaning geisha governance at the local level. >> we are going about how some of that local provençal and, on issues like criminal justice, allow you to build very unlikely left-right alliances. >> thank you for having us here. i'm happy to be here representing immigrants and dreamers. for us, we are doing that. we have been doing that for the past decade. we are organizing and sharing , as someone who is an immigrant and group undocumented in your city. we are redefining citizenship and expanding the concept of citizenship beyond the place

that you are born. i was born in ecuador. i'm an ecuadorian citizen. all the values that i have raised are the ones that i learned here. i see myself as an american. i don't have a paper that says i'm an american citizen. many of the dreamers do not. what we have done is -- we are exercising citizenship by being engaged in fighting for our rights. we are holding politicians accountable. we do not have the right to vote. a comes down to responsibility of contributing. a responsibility for the common good, not only for immigrant communities, but for the rest of our committees and america. understanding and that citizenship is beyond having the right to vote. it is about engagement. is not being part of the political process. what you have seen, with the dreamers, is that we have gone

to the offices the congress and said, i am your constituents. this is my story. this is why you should care about immigration reform. redefining the issue of citizenship and what it means to us. we believe ourselves, as americans, although we do not have the papers to show that we are and we were not born in this country. think of potential immigration reform and we get into more interesting thinking about having to do to to redefine citizenship. >> this question right now is front and center. this idea of a pathway to citizenship. we spent a lot time faking about that path when and how long to be, what you need to get on to that pathway. we've not talked with the destination. citizenship. what does it take to reinvigorate that? called theomething

franklin project, an initiative that grew out of laster's aspen ideas that will, promoting an idea of national service to spark a national movement around national service. you, this question of citizenship is not about redefining, but returning to an older concept of citizenship. >> for the record, i voted to add $1 trillion to the deficit. if we had not done that, we not -- we would not have ended an economic downturn. i wish we had done it. i would be happy to argue it. u.s. an interesting question. we talked about before. citizenship, to me, it is staring the joys -- sharing the joys of self-government. to understand the obligation of balancing your own interests against the common good.

with citizenship in a democratic republic -- that is what citizenship in a democratic public is all about. said, politics goes well and we know a good in common that we do not know alone. it's based to a concert of citizenship of things that we do together and not just things that we do on our own, even when they are creative. the other quotation i want to share -- i want to put on the table the question of, are we making it harder for people to be good citizens? in the famous new nationalism speech that teddy roosevelt game said, no mat to be a good citizen unless he has a way

to cover the cost of living and hours of labor short enough so that after his day's work is done that he will have time and energy to bear his share in the management of the community to carry the general load. we keep countless men for being good citizens by the conditions of life that we surround them in. probably, at some point, whenever we talk about citizenship we stop preaching. i would ask, why are we making iterts -- making efforts for -- making efforts to make it harder for them to vote. ? there were more than a half billion people who want to go into americorps. across serviceat

opportunities. in what citizens to be better we teach our don't kids citizenship in high school. somebody went to a great public high school and took a state and local government class. something like that should be available to all of our students. it is useful and i have a long list of things i've the people to do. and we want to engage in public debate, what we make it -- why do we make it so unattractive. if you buy the guys burgers, you will be boys and. and to go on the airline, you will crash. firm, invest in this they'll embezzle your money. that is what what we tell people about public life. e last thing i would say,

if we want people to be citizens -- if you want to be citizens, -- if we want people to be wrapens, why do we everything in terms of market choice question mark market choice is not all of life. the language that we have surround ourselves with sometimes operates against that. but i'm not sure that we disagree -- >> i'm not sure that we disagree on the idea that when is "market above all else," that we lose something. the teddy roosevelt speech that , whennne was just quoting you have severe social inequality, like today, it becomes a simple fact that is

harder for people to engage in civic life. the other dimension of inequality, that your speaks to are beingny decisions made by a small elite. -- this is politics a cross -- the elites in politics have rigged the game. >> to enter the market choice question, what is the alternative was to mark -- alternative? the alternative is ruled by a small elite disconnected from the population. in places like kalamazoo, that people ind those places look at washington, d.c. like it is alien and vice versa. ,y friend sit around and ask how i find a job and get groceries for my children.

go to washington and there's more construction that i've ever seen. bloomberg any of north america has put its headquarters there. there to meet people gain cash for lamborghini's. seven of the wealthiest counties are in the beltway of washington dc. the choice is through market choice or through people who are enriching themselves at the expense of the rest of us. >> you were talking earlier about the idea that there are so many people in the millennial are skeptical of politics as politics. they're trying to find ways of politics through other means. what are you saying at rock the vote? >> i will build off of ej's , why are we doing all of these things if we do not want people to be good citizens?

i think young people believe that those in power do not want us to be at her citizens and that they are doing things to keep us away from the political system. the partisan bickering and the disc trust of politicians solving problems that we see like day -- real problems students graduating with $25,000 with the that. to doubleopportunity the student interest rates. no action was taken on that. what faith can you have in political leaders when no action is taken? it's not that the young don't care anymore, it's that they're trying to find solutions on their own. themselves fund in -- more young people funded themselves through kick starter then the national endowment of the arts.

that is young people being entrepreneurial and finding solutions to the problems that they face each day. that is free market. they keep similar way for engaging in the government. in the long run, that things worse. a fact of american political history. it is a story of outsiders coming in to remind insiders with the creed is supposed to be. it is from beginning. when you're talking about the today, foring, or you to be coming to me the inside, you know this is not about sloganeering. you are learning the machinery of government. you are learning about markups of bills in committee and so forth. many others in your generation are saying that that is a waste of their time. you are doubling down and getting smart on that. how do you spread a message, to

other dreamers and other nativeborn american young people. ? >> what had worked for us is that we have achieved victory by organizing and taking action and getting engaged. ross, we can say that the reason you want to get engaged and we want to share our stories as undocumented and we want to get engaged the clinical process -- it is like a roller coaster -- and thert of the markup inside day that happens the beltway. understand how we have outside otherstway and educating . organizing for 10 years, we reached the biggest victory.

when that happened, young people felt that they were not a voter, not a citizen, but they were sharing their story, coming out, writing letters, knocking on doors and getting out latino voters. all that work -- all of that worked. >> i want to understand that i want to explain what i mean when we refer to dreamers. aree are people who undocumented and were brought here as children. -- pathwayhways used to citizenship through citizen -- through military service or higher education. 19, i would give

cited as annd i was illegal student. to create find a way a shared identity with immigrant youth that would not make you feel like the other or the alien. that is why dreamer came about. one of e.j.'s earlier this book is still as fresh as today. i urge you to get it. ej was describing the politics of false choices. today, they are more amplified. is most basic false choice is too be americans

understand that there are tensions between federal and .traight -- state between what we do to be free and what we do to plan for the future. to engage in civic life is to recognize that you cannot make a full choice. -- full source -- false choice. when it comes many of our , do think that we are worse off or better off? >> the next book is going to be called why i love eric liu. >> that makes one buyer. >> i do not think we have got a lot better. resist jumping to march mark's topic -- provocations.

a judge had said thousand dollars from one lawyer to pick a case and 5000 other lawyer and is a conference of the two lawyers. he says that if you give me another five grant, we can have this trial on the level. sold.not want bought and people should not buy and sell how long somebody lives. we should couple buy insurance if they cannot afford it. in our guts, we know there are limits to markets. i want to put that in. concept, ithoice has divided our political heart. it is about the false choice between liberty and community. there are people going back to the founding. europe to understand that we have always valued individuals

and and liberty. we've also believed in community. liberty, itself, depends on a strong community. that includes actions of government, but is not limited to government. we see in a park from community -- apart from community. if you leave out woodrow wilson and the new deal, accurately about henry clay, alexander hamilton, and a whole bunch of other people who believe that a , innovative, entrepreneurial economy depends on government and other collective forces doing things to make that possible. we spoke about internal improvements. we now call that infrastructure. we build roads that bind us

together and allow us to have commerce. they serve the interests of prosperity and, i believe, in the long run, liberty. my argument, just to double back, is that the tea party views the founding and the entirely about individualism and liberty. that the first word of the constitution is "we." it is a we document, not and i i document. an would talk about living room conversations. my friend who is a fonder of -- hasder of moveon.org

created a set of projects called living room conversations. the format is simple. i want to let you describe it. you and joan are dissipated in these that participated in these . not in a come by our way -- kumb ayah way. there are tensions between liberty and community. there's a tension tension between a strong state and a free people. can you tell us about what you and joan have gotten started? >> strange bedfellows. a founder of the tea party and moveon.org working on teaching people how to talk about the issues facing the nation. if you turn on television and watch msnbc and fox, what you will see is how to be divided.

what you'll learn is how to talk at at each other and not with each other. their behavior on that. if you are conservative and use the available friends, you are really good at making them angry. the same is true in the other direction. we look in the newspaper and all forms of media. we need to have these conversations a civil way. the first hour these conversations is about why are you here and what are you passionate about. what you want to accomplish. what you want in your own community? after that first hour, what you think is, i like these people. you go into the room with a sense of trepidation. one of my friend said, they are coming to my house, what do you feed the liberals?

are.is how divided we i live in the rural foothills of california. to give you a picture of the 350ide, i drive a huge f- truck that says "tea party" on the tailgate. we find that we have a lot in common. we find that we are concerned with the same things in our communities. we find that we do not limit our schools are operating well.. we that we do- we find not think that our schools operating well. we find that we think that our version system is important. system is of lawrence -- abhorant. we are working on criminal

justice reforms. but, crony capitalism is another one. none of us like the fact that monies trading hands for constituencies and regular citizens are on the outside. everyone is frustrated about that except for the people in washington dc. so much of the political media teaches us how to be divided. i want to expand beyond political news media. so much of what rock the vote does is in this great people from popular culture. celebrities, movie stars, politicians, arts best artists of all kinds. -- artists of all kinds. >> what we try to do is take what you are doing and model that behavior through popular

culture to a much larger audience. i think that using celebrities musicians -- using celebrities, musicians, and artists ring benefits. the first is that i speak to rooms filled with dumb people -- young people. when i talk, it's applico parents talking -- it sounds like their parents are talking. dropped, like, i was having a conversation with christopher selig, the bass novacelic, the bass player of nirvana. their heirs pick up -- their perk perk up -- thier ear

up. attention -- it that can grab the attention of the audience. it is the way that they think about that question. that is a good thing. instead of just getting their attention, it changes the norm around what it means to vote. it is like a giant marketing campaign. means to change what it and model that behavior nationally. example, there was gay marriage. 10 years ago, it was not very favorable. we talked with the issues. we have worked with television shows to write this into their scripts. these visions writing it it's the lyrics. years later, the numbers have

slept. went back toourt' statistics. eight in 10 americans claim to know somebody who is day. when you ask them -- is gay. when you ask them who that is, they say it is a television character. >> wow. yesterday, the number one pass from pisa media was" fro -- the number one pass around peace of media was a quote from mclemore. e -- it is what he was talking about earlier.

>> democracy class. we can tell the story their way. we can talk about the history of voting and why it matters. power, and other things that are exciting about this. we can animate it. they get this box. it arrives in the classroom and it is the coolest thing of the school year. the teacher says to put the pencils away. video and there is john legend and people they see on television talking to them. at the end of the day, they learn how the electoral process works, why it matters, and the power that comes with voting. more engaged than they would be. >> it comes. circle.

we are talking a lot about the millennial generation. it comes up over and over. how to make it possible for one million young people in the united states to get engage in a meaningful, full-time, service to community. ,he thing that strikes me is one of the threads of the conversation that began a year -- was stanley mcchrystal he states a language that -- he speaks a language that sayings, for me -- sings, for me. it's not just "don't tread on me." this conversation can get very

preachy. about the obligation side of citizenship. had we have a meaningful do wesation about -- how have a meaningful conversation about citizenship. what is your sense of how we do this. i want tof all emphasize the joys of wielding power. the federal government is a remarkable thing. when we talk about what is happening in the senate today, the fact that the immigration bill is on the floor of the senate is the direct result, i believe, of what voters did in large numbers in the last election. latinos have sent a message to the republican party, in this case. when somebody says that politics does not work, that is not true.

the other thing is, we almost always say that that is really political. that is a negative. politics is the alternative to war. we are going to have different issues. we're going to have different values. we can work out how we are going to live together and what law we're going to live together under or we start to fight with each other. i salute, by the way, what you are doing in these sessions. have real we do not arguments in this country. we have counter assertions. that guy does not understand english. in real arguments, you put your ideas at risk.

you are to convert your opponent, and in the process, you are listed yourself. i am a huge millennial fan. i'm an unapologetic apologizing for the millennial's. as 18-nd it very broadly 35 and a little older. when you look at this generation, they have done a lot more servers than earlier generations. when some people said that they had to because high schools had rules and needed to get into college. it still transforms them. they have this liberty/community thing that of the rest of us to. do.s on one hand, they are entrepreneurial. understand public

institutions and care about them. they form social networks. that is not an accident. i have a lot of hope, genuine hope, in this generation. i teach in college and i'm impressed by the kids who come into my class. christine, i want to get to you before we open up the conversation more widely. you imagine yourself in the , we camethe other side from another panel about citizen artists and the role of the arts . -- key tonversation empathyversation was and the ability to imagine yourself in different shoes.

the dreamers, the immigrant rights movement, more broadly, has been one of the most emotionally moving exercises in activating empathy that we've seen in a long time. level,, at the personal how have you tried to create that sense of apathy -- empathy when you people saying that you are an illegal. how do you create a bridge of empathy. to delay orll want defer forever the path to citizenship, but they can at least imagine what it is like to be you. it comes down to my story. , whatou share your story is your past, what you do and

how you participate in your , youty, -- community realize that we have a lot of things in common and, in so many ways, i am you. i am you. someoneally hard for that i have many friends and i hadgues in college -- many friends and colleagues in college who identify themselves as republican and did not know i was undocumented. i had many friends and we were running for student government. when they found out that i was i thought people were going to reject me. it did not happen. they realize that i was like them. that i had names like them -- aims like them. and that made all the

difference. >> your story is remarkable. what of the things i want to do --open up this conversation one of the things i want to do now is open up this conversation. if you'd like to share a reflection or thought, we want to hear that. >> if you can wait for a microphone so everyone can hear you >> 25 years ago, i was the chair of the americorps program in houston. we were able to raise more money than anyone else did and any other trinity. clinton wanted us to have -- as his major thing -- he wanted a million people to be in americorps. chuck grassley want to have zero people in americorps. >> let's compromise at a half a million.

>> the question i had was, i was at a meeting in d.c. where there were two senators and three representatives representatives. we said, let's go over the one million. >> they said, where are you going to get the money? that was the end of the process. clinton wanted really badly. he wanted to be one of the things that we would remember him for. in those days, we were only paying about $7,500 to each of the volunteers. charles grassley did not call them volunteers.

>> and you look back on our session, it is a thing that needs to be worked out. how much more public money are we willing to put in? what will the source of the money be? are there state and local entities that will kick in? compared to lots of other things, these are people doing very good work for very little money. i want to reflect on the charles grassley and dick armey view, at the time. there is an intentionally leading question that said that

the notion was that you're giving people a stipend and that makes them less volunteer-ish. i want these kids to come from east l.a. if you want all americans to serve, including americans of these families who cannot support them while they are serving their country, you have to have money behind it. you need the will to try to create this. it will be at a time when budget crunches are a real challenge. it is worth paying for, for a variety of reasons. we might agree on that. there are a lot of people would need to be persuaded.

>> let's go over here. you run a organization called the individual life corps. there a conversation about faith and pluralism in the united states. question talk about a number of fascinating things, from the arab spring to individual government. one of the great geniuses of society was civic institutions. the ptas and the ymcas. i want you to reflect on the trends. historically, religious community seven drivers of institutions. there is a decline in trust in all institutions. there is a sexiness to revolution, versus trying to build something over 30, 40, 50 years.

are we going to have the same civic institutions of the united ates that we do right now? >> a really good question. people are no longer identifying as immigrants are republicans. you are losing that infrastructure and community, as well. it will reshape what it looks like. they're continuing to gather together and take collective action. right now, that is often online and through social networks. they're connected, not just locally, but in other states across the country. i do not know what that will turn into. that is an interesting question. >> i think that what we have seen, with the immigrant youth community, is that we have to build it and create a space for us.

even within the immigrant advocacy community, at some point, a group of us decided that we need to create a space for young people to drive our agenda. it will organize and help make an impact. what we are experiencing, with immigrant youth, and our constituency -- we have 52 affiliate organizations. there is a hunger and longing to be part of a network. i'm not so down about his book and twitter. those are the tools that give us a sense of connection. even with the people in egypt. from my perspective, i see millennial's and the dreamers in particular, advancing in five and 10 years.

if you think about immigration reform. if you are talking about 11 million people living in the shadows, young people can get those folks engaged. that is where we see the opportunity to do that. >> what we're talking about is the largest of intermediary organizations in society. the bigger and more powerful government gets, the less organizations we have. the less powerful they are. necessary to the existence of those organizations is how her we're talking about the distribution of power throughout society. the more those organizations have power, the stronger they will be. there's a feeling that, if they get a copy something and what they do makes a difference, that

makes those organizations strong. if they are separate structures for communication, people will not participate in them. >> i'm about to want to go into one of those living rooms. this is disproven by our history and the new deal. the g.i. bill and labor organizations. it is a great question. we are a sports-obsessed country. i spent a lot of time on sports fields with my kids. whether things you do not take into account enough is how much our civic infrastructure there was a long timeframe where women were not given the opportunity to work where they should have been.

women decided that they wanted the same opportunities. we were leaning on them a lot more than we wanted to let on to. what i worry about is organizations that makes people. coaching together. the big sort. we live apart from each other. we don't have enough of bridging social capital. we have to work on that. >> i want to go to a woman whose head has been up right here. let's go to this side of the room. >> i work in education.

i guess, the thing i am wondering about is the ethics of service to stop we do not talk about the ethical implications of white middle-class people going into low income minority communities and saying that they are serving them. that is a powerful message that we are sending to our middle class and are you will stop certain people are deserving of service answerable are deserving to provide that service. how does that play out? as a leader, or potentially, as a follower? being a chance at a major rather than a follower. -- being a change-maker rather than a follower. >> the value of universal service -- i'm not talk about compulsory -- but, the idea that

everyone should start is that the lowest person has the most to give as the highest income person in the country. it is not about better off kids going to help out less well off kids. even though, that is a good and decent thing to do. it is about serving the country in the way that you can. we are all in this together, no matter how rich or how poor. whatever our original citizenship status was. that is why i like the idea of making it universal. >> let me get in on the question into the mix. yes? >> i struggle for the mike. >> i got a pay for it.

>> shelley torgas. i want to highlight something and asked you a question. what we're trying to help is a grassroots pac. they have had very bad reputations for buying collections from the people. what we are doing is something very different. on june 30, you will see the thousands of people were stepping up to support hillarypac. even if these national servants need to be paid. what is the role of pacs in

these initiatives to break through on new levels? >> we are having a conversation, before we went live, about money in politics. i agree, what you are doing with your organization is phenomenal. organizations are like people. some people do good. some people do bad. the idea that pacs are evil is wrong. -- itpends under politics. depends on their politics. if you are anti-hillary, you probably do not like that pac. it depends on the ethics that you fill it with. i don't have a problem with money in politics. if you look at the last election, 7 billion spent in the --st cycle, i want more money

we as a nation spend more money out potato chips then the last election. i want more people heard. you are to be commended. i appreciate it. >> i have a problem with money and politics and the role that it plays right now. my solution is to engage more we have 60% turning out for a presidential election. in 2008 and 2012, we heard it was the year of the youth vote. what would it look like if 60%, at 70%, 80% of them turned out? empowering people to get invested in a campaign, to write a check, it is a powerful thing. it invests people in the political process.

it is small giving. the answer is matching funds, vouchers, tax credits. i do not think you'll ever flood out the big money. perhaps, small money will be competitive with big money. in new york, you have a 5-1 match. i think, putting small money is the best bet that we have now. citizen united will not let's do something to answer the big money. >> i wanted to close, as our time comes to an end, with a simple charge to all of you. this is been a great conversation. the question is, what are we going to do? what are we going to do to revitalize citizenship in the united states? we have heard, and of course the

of the last hour, several preconceptions -- conceptions. whether it is the working of government or service in the community. whether it is trying to mobilize money in new ways. whether it is about trying to reinvigorate the way we teach. the very nature of self- governance -- no matter what your angle of entry is, everyone has a way. everyone has an obligation. we cannot come out of a conversation like this and say, i am going to go to the planetarium now. what am i going to do? what like what am i going to pledge to myself and the person i came to this room with? if a room like this can make that commitment, we will set forth a social contagion that everyone is talking about.

thank you for being part of this conversation. pass it on. [applause] [inaudible] >> well, i feel that we take for granted the opportunities that we have here. being in other countries and going to other countries, i see the way other people live and it is wonderful to be an american. wonderful. i love it. i would not trade it for the world. we need to sit back, as americans, and think that everyday is not not going to be great but, it is better than a lot of other people lived in a lot of other countries.

we sit back and gripe and complain about this and that, we should take about what we do have. not whether or not we would be better off than where we are. >> it means that we all have a mutual understanding that freedom and liberty leads to great success. those of the reasons our nation has been successful and will continue to be. >> i was born here. i was raised in new york. i always had a lot of american pride. my parents came from india. they do not have much. they came to new york because they thought it was a great place for opportunity. i just graduated from medical school. to come from place nothing and bring it up. that is what america sees -- but that isn't what everyone sees america as, a place of

opportunity. a place where you can make your dreams come true. that sounds a little cliché. is the main that thing. i'm proud to be american because my parents felt it was better to be in america. i think it really is. >> on the next washington scola of they washington post looks at the use of pay data by the obama administration to drive decision-making. normanutenant general seip talked about the drinking thursday -- the prekindergarten education program. much foreignw visitors spend in the united states on tourism.

calls, andphone tweets. washington journal is live every day. a look at the origins of instagram and what is ahead in the future. two stanford graduates build the company. they sold it to facebook for $1 billion. we'll hear more about this during this event that is one hour and 10 minutes. >> awesome. popcorn. this was my request, popcorn and a comfy couch. welcome. are i'm excited to be here. you guys excited to be here?how many instagram fans are there out there?

that's awesome. we are going to be recording this for radio. i should bang this thing three times. are you ready to start? good evening and welcome to the commonwealth club. you can find us online and watch our videos. you can join the community at instagram. and on facebook. tonight, we're are hosting a conversation with the founders of instagram. kevin is a cofounder of instagram. he started as an intern.

he spent two years at google, before cofounding instagram. he was on times list of the 100 most influential people. he moved from california to brazil in 2004. he is the secret man behind all things scaling on instagram. you guys are now at 100 million users, does that shock you? are you like, how in the hell did we get here? >> i don't know how big this is going to get, but i know i know we created something that is going to take off. it is incredible. >> let's start at the beginning. >> i graduated stanford in 2009.

i started out studying user experiences. i was frustrated on how hard it was to use computers. people lack basic computer skills. it was so hard for people to understand why you click this thing and double-click that thing. it was way harder than it needed to be. i thought, this has to be easier. but, yeah, i went to stanford and met kevin at a coffee shop one morning. i said that i would work on this full-time.

>> it is interesting, you guys started bourbon first. you create a program that was nothing like what instagram became. >> early on, or my uncle gave me this laptop, i got -- not a lot people will remember when laptops had two colors. it had a couple of games on it. he told me that you can create these things with code. he taught me a few commands and that i started programming. and i programmed on the side. i got into trouble making programs that kicked my friends off-line on aol and prodigy. i got a family account deleted one time.

i do computer science class my first quarter. i got into my class and i looked around. i said, i'm going to do this and do this really well. it was the hardest lesson i have ever taken in my entire life. i got a c on my first assignments. i thought, what has the world come to?